Three-dimensional diffusion tensor magnetic resonance microimaging of adult mouse brain and hippocampus.

The use of diffusion tensor information as an additional contrast in MR microimaging was investigated in ex vivo mouse brain and isolated hippocampus. Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) provided unique contrast to identify many internal structures of the gray matter such as hippocampus, thalamus, and cortex. In hippocampus, stratum granulosum and stratum pyramidale could be identified using the isotropic water diffusion constant. Stratum moleculare and stratum radiatum were identified from their characteristic fiber architecture revealed by color-coded DTI. Identification of these structures allowed reconstruction of their 3-D volume. Thus, high-resolution DTI has excellent potential as a tool for 3-D characterization of murine brains.